


The Long List

by LeftyLoosy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Divorced Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley, F/M, Gen, Harry is a Good Dad, Hurt Harry, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:20:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28186038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeftyLoosy/pseuds/LeftyLoosy
Summary: Harry Potter- a recently separated dad with a lifetime history of problems only to be further complicated by future problems.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	The Long List

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first Harry Potter fic since I was 17 years old. Having re read the books and re watched the movies, my adult self has a whole new perspective on that questionable epilogue. This is my attempt to come to terms with it. Please know that I'm winging this story. I just want some Harry as a dad and some good old fashioned love with hurt/comfort tossed in for a full bodied flavor.

The alarm clock beeped incessantly behind Harry’s side table where he’d last flung it and failed to remember to turn off the auto settings. Some muggle habits died hard and regular alarm clocks were on the top of Harry’s list.

His wand was an easy reach under his pillow and with a single reducto curse blasted straight through his side table, the alarm fell silent with a screeching whine.

He heard a clatter outside in the hallway and groaned with resignation.

“Dad, are you up then?” James’ disembodied voice came around the flimsy half muffliato charm Harry had placed on the door the night before. He’d learned many times over that a full muffliato was a horrible mistake after he came out one morning, half past eight, fully rested and Lily having had half her freckles moved from one side of her face to the other.

The door flew open. Harry feigned sleep with a loud fake snore but he couldn’t stop a toothy smile when James flung himself onto the bed.

Lightning fast, with his eyes still closed, he snatched in the general direction of James’ body and managed to grab a flailing limb. He popped his eyes open and pulled, James squealing.

James laughed and fought half heartedly as Harry pulled up his shirt and blew big cheek puffs of air against James’ now exposed stomach. They play battled until another dip in the bed and a second indicated Lily and Albus had joined. Harry was shortly covered in bony limbs and tickled by long red hair.

“Alright, alright! I turn over my wand!” The pile wiggled abruptly with everyone giggling around Harry, who had to take several deep breaths to stop himself laughing too hard.

“I want to hold your wand Daddy!” Lily’s voice was far too loud in the small room. Harry rolled over and pulled out his wand.

“Now remember, a wand is a tool-”

“-not a toy” Albus groaned from Harry’s feet. Lily held the wand with reverence in both hands as though it was the most delicate piece of glass. She turned it over and over in her finger tips.

Lily looked up, her green eyes piercing and fierce. Harry imagined that’s how his mother’s eyes would have looked. After all these many years, his heart still hurt when he least expected it, but now the feeling was encircled with an aggressive fondness.

“I hope my wand is half as pretty as this!”

The wand had become all the more beautiful for all of it’s faults and he loved that his own daughter recognized how truly invaluable it has become. When Harry looked down at his wand he felt an intense connection and realized that the small hole missing a piece on the handle was turned toward him. He’d lost the piece briefly during an aurora standoff with a recent Hogwarts graduate who’d decided to attempt fraud at gringotts bank. 

They’d found the piece when the ministry swept the place for an invaluable silver lion that had been pocketed by the very same thief. Harry had visited a muggle shop and had the piece placed into a small metal cage on a silver chain. He’d given it to Ginny on their tenth wedding anniversary. 

The sun beams shifted suddenly and Harry returned to the moment.

“Shall I tell you a story?”

Lily clapped, James grinned and wrapped his arms around Harry’s shoulders, and Albus settled cross legged with a serious expression on his face. Harry drank in the sight and realized, not for the first time, that they all live up perfectly to their names.

The morning sun slowly shifted light beams across the bed sheets as Harry told them a tale with half truths and muggle folk lore, something he was sure their classmates and family would never recognize. Lily hmm’d and haa’d at all the right moment, Albus’ mouth formed shapes in wonder, and James wriggled restlessly throughout. 

When the end neared, Harry drew up straight and gently took back his wand from Lily to create shapes that resembled the characters and monsters in his tale. 

=====

At breakfast, Albus pushed his plate away and looked at Harry seriously, “will mum be joining today?” 

Harry sputtered briefly on his pumpkin juice, gulped half heartedly around a cough, “we’ve sorted out that she’ll meet us at the entrance of Diagon Alley around noon and you’ll all stay with her and nan until start of term and then Lily, you’re going to be visiting your Uncle Bill and Auntie Fleur.”

Ginny and Harry had been very careful to avoid involving their three children in their separation, but Albus and Lily had always been far more intuitive than any children their age should be. James had settled on the idea uncomfortably fast with a screamed “two Christmases.”

Of course, the papers had taken to the news with unkind words and Harry had received howlers four times expressing their distaste for Harry’s rumoured infidelity, warped genitalia, and magical bursts of anger that could not be controlled with will power alone. He couldn’t shield his kids from that. He had begged Ginny to watch them until the hype had died down. Ginny, of course, bless her heart, had refused and had a sit down with them to explain that howlers were the unkind words of wizards and witches who felt the need to insert lies and opinions on others because their lives were drab and unhappy.

“Daddy, when I go, I’d like to have a ferret for school.” Lily’s high pitched request broke the moment and Harry laughed so forcefully that the pumpkin juice he’d mistakenly inhaled managed to come up through his nose.

====

The entrance to Diagon Alley was just as crowded as always. That is to say, there were four people waiting outside the brick wall when Harry and his three kids walked into the Leaky Cauldron. 

One of them had bright red hair and was throwing back her head in laughter.

Harry’s heart swelled two times it’s size at the sight. Ginny had always been open to displaying her emotions and Harry never tired at the sight of her unabashed happiness. He still felt as though he could share in it and wished he could be that for her.

“Mummy!” Lily’s unrestrained shriek echoed through the inn and every single set of eyes turned towards them. Harry’s skin itched knowing that they all stared at his daughter.

Lily streaked away towards Ginny’s side followed closely by James and Albus, who glanced briefly up at Harry’s face before moving. 

When Ginny looked up, her eyes widened ever so slightly before turning up with a smile. Harry returned the smile and approached her, hands dangling uselessly by his side. Out of habit, he so terribly wanted to reach up and touch her long neck, brush his hands in her hair, and lay his lips gently against hers. It had been sixteen years of a greeting routine.

“Harry!” her voice belayed all surprise and immediately fell on fondness. 

Harry didn’t hesitate in drawing her into a tight embrace, their beautiful children clamped tightly around them.


End file.
